Sorry

This pilot fish works for a company that still uses a legacy system for handling its retirement plans -- and we're not talking a mainframe here.

"It's a home-grown, 22-year-old DOS-based system we use to manage profit sharing, 401K and stock options," says fish.

"Many of the data fields are free-form, allowing the users to enter any value they want.

"While troubleshooting a problem with the ESOP forfeitures recently, I saw some data that I'm fairly certain didn't belong there. In the TransactionScope field for a 2011 entry, I found the following data:

The Mix

1/3 cup raw rolled oats

1/2 cup plain low-f

"Which may explain why the stock options are a mess..."

Now Sharky's hungry-- for your true tale of IT life. Send it to me at sharky@computerworld.com. You'll snag a snazzy Shark shirt if I use it. Add your comments below, and read some great old tales in the Sharkives.

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